Sunday, February 6, 2011

No, really, why are they rebooting Spider-Man?

35 years old and yet he lives-surely this is sorcery.

Is it really time to reboot the Spider-Man movies? I know 2002 seems like the sepia-toned distant past, but for real. I'm not even the biggest Toby Maguire fan (yes, you can support the troops and still hate this movie), but we Logan's Runners need to stick together. Besides, he was kind of perfect as the socially awkward victim of Stan Lee's tenuous grasp of science (radiation=superpowers and not say, hair loss and tumors). Is he now so decrepit that they have to start the whole series over again with a younger actor?

His emotions hurt.

There is something totally depressing about waking up one day to the realization that you are now older than all of your childhood heroes. Of course as fictional characters they don't age, but the actors playing them do or at least they used to until 'reboot' and 'origin story' became part of every day speech. Thanks to these shakes of the continuity Etch A Sketch, I am now older than Doctor Who,* Captain Kirk and soon Professor Freaking X. Lame. And it's not just movies, comic books have been doing it for years. Look what they did to Superman (see left, under the sad bangs). I was never a big fan, but the Last Son of Krypton deserves better than to be whored out to emo kids.

The unlimited resources of
Wayne Enterprises and this is the most
efficient way to contact him?

What's worse is that a lot of these origin stories are unnecessary to begin with. Everyone knows how Batman became Batman. Bruce Wayne's parents are murdered, so he dons the cape and cowl to right wrongs on cloudy nights. Great, origin accomplished. Now, anyone else think Batman Begins was 45 minutes too long? Oh, so that's how he got his Bat-Gloves...fascinating. And remember the scene in Episode II where Anakin 'Darth Vader' Skywalker complains about how the sands of Tatooine chafe his bottom? Dark Lord of the Sith indeed! Was the name Darth Pussius taken?

Stake him. No one with hair

that stupid should be immortal...

So why all the youth-enizing? Can't there be grown up heroes in sci-fi/fantasy? Sometimes I think all these prequels and re-boots and re-imaginings are made so studios can appeal to whatever the hell makes Twilight so successful. It's almost as if they're in it for the money or something. Also, I like to blame as many things as possible on Stephanie Meyer and her moody non-vampires† who sparkle. Have I read it or seen the movie? Nope. I prefer to judge these particular movies by their posters (see left). Seriously, look at that poster. What is wrong with people?

Angela Chase moped
before it was cool.

*Yes. The Doctor's ability to regenerate has been a part of the series for decades, and calling it out as a cheap ploy to attract new viewers is unfair. But seriously, he's like 900 years old in Time Lord years, shouldn't that translate to at least 32?

†Vampires are abominations damned to wander the earth and feed on the blood of the living to perpetuate their cursed immortality. They must shun the warm embrace of the sun for it will destroy them. They do not go to high school and mope.

p.s. It is, of course, entirely possible that the Spider-Man reboot was prompted by Spider-Man 3 sucking as hard as it did. While I agree that anything is possible, I would point out that the Star Wars prequels sucked with the intensity of a collapsed sun and no one's talking reboot there.

You're thinking about the chafing line right now, aren't you?
Yeah, there's no coming back from that...